24 March 2008. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are doing battle for the Democrat presidential candidacy, Duffy's spell at No1 with Mercy is in its final week, and two second-half goals against Northampton Town have taken John Ward's Carlisle United to their 14th consecutive win at Brunton Park, a home league record of P18 W16 D1 L1, and a pipe-and-slippers comfortable spot in League One's automatic promotion places. Eight games to go, Doncaster are five points back in third having played a game more, Forest 11 points away in fourth; the Championship, for the first time in more than 20 years, is within touching distance.

Then the ghost of Devon Loch came trotting along. Those final eight games would produce only one win and six points, the killer result arguably the 2-0 home defeat to Forest on April Fool's Day. Colin Calderwood's team would storm through to pip United to second spot behind Swansea and the play-offs delivered the predictable kick in the teeth, courtesy of Leeds.

And that appeared to be that, an anticlimactic end to what had been a meteoric rise. Having entered the 21st century as the Football League's tightrope walkers (91st of 92 clubs in 98-99 (thanks to Jimmy Glass), 91st again in 99-00, 90th in 00-01) before finally falling off and into the Conference in 2003-04, Carlisle had bottomed out and bounced back with consecutive promotions under Paul Simpson. Simpson's departure to Preston (easy to forget he was once a managerial next-big-thing) had been expected to end the charge, but first Neil McDonald and then Ward managed to maintain the momentum. That is, until those fateful few weeks in the spring of 2008.

Two years in the League One wilderness have followed. Kieren Westwood – a crucial cog in the side – headed to Coventry, the exceptional Joe Garner joined promoted Forest for more than £1m, Ward departed a couple of months into the new season with the club a point outside the relegation zone, and Greg Abbott took over a ship that seemed to be listing dangerously. They went into the final day in the bottom four and only an unlikely victory over Millwall (thanks to two stonewall screamers) secured their survival. Consolidation and mid-table safety followed last season and this year Carlisle are once again eyeing a tilt at the top.

That Carlisle seem to have rediscovered their mojo after having the wind taken so spectacularly from their sails is really rather remarkable, considering that this is a club that has spent the majority of its life bumping around in the bottom tier, and often at the sticky end of it (a pattern that was set early – they'd been a Football League club for seven seasons when they first finished bottom of the pile in the old Division Three North in 1935. Can any club have finished in the bottom dozen or so teams in the Football League more often than Carlisle? I count around 19 times in 82 seasons). This season's average attendance – 5,686 – is bottom-half in League One terms. And yet there they sit, nestled in the top half of the division within three points of the automatic promotion places (and the gap might've been even smaller were it not for a bonkers affair at Brunton Park on Saturday).

So what's going on at the much-tidier-than-you'd-expect stadium a stone's throw from the River Eden? "To be honest at the end of the season there was a massive change throughout the squad," says the United midfielder Tom Taiwo. "Some players didn't have their contracts renewed and at one point we didn't have many players. It could've gone either way, so all credit to the coaching staff and the scouts that they've brought in such good players that've improved us since last season."

"There were reports in the summer that the club had targets that they didn't get because of the location – players weren't willing to move so far north. Maybe it's not such a luxurious location as somewhere down south where possibly the weather is better and the so-called lifestyle is, but that's worked in our favour because at the moment we've got players who are at Carlisle because they're young and want to prove themselves or because no one else will take a risk on them. The manager's shown a lot of faith in a lot of players and because of that they're all trying to repay him and prove their worthy of Carlisle United.

"We've got just a small squad that you have to class – and it's a cliche I know – but every player as a key player. We're not in a position where we can use squad rotation but in a way that works well because everyone knows they've got a vital role to play."

Taiwo is certainly one of those with something to prove. You may remember him as one of the two players whom Ken Bates accused Chelsea of poaching from Leeds in 2006. To say things didn't really work out at Stamford Bridge is something of an understatement and after only a handful of reserve-team appearances in just over three years, the midfielder headed to Carlisle in January to rejoin Abbott, with whom he worked at Elland Road. Yet after stints at two of England's biggest clubs, he insists that life at Brunton Park has not been a culture shock.

"When I was at Leeds there was a lot of top players there but the ethic was always if you work hard you'll get a chance," says the 20-year-old. "Nobody was ever mollycoddled and from that I've always been grounded with the fact that you've got to work hard and that nothing will come easy. And although Carlisle are a smaller club the ethics are still the same.

"Being at Chelsea for four years gave me a long time to understand where I was at in my career. I wasn't a regular in the reserve team, I was probably nowhere near the first team and in order to improve myself I think I had to go and play at any level I could. I had a spell at Port Vale that went well for the first four weeks but then the manager got sacked so … I learned early that the most important thing was being in a side and playing. The chance came about with Carlisle and with Gregg. I jumped at the chance because I knew him and because I saw it as a chance to prove myself."

The club's recent stutter – three defeats in the last four culminating in that 4-3 defeat to Charlton Athletic – has taken the edge off what had been a storming start and prompted fears that last season's inconsistency could be creeping back. Abbott's squad is a young one – the manager's friendship with Warren Joyce, the assistant manager of Manchester United's reserves has helped bring three teenagers on loan from Old Trafford – so the smattering of older heads at the club may need to play an important role in steering their junior team-mates through a difficult patch. A tricky trip to Bristol Rovers, where Carlisle's 2-1 lead became a 3-2 defeat in the final eight minutes last season, awaits on Saturday. Time to bounce back once again.